


...becomes a Tree

by raiyana



Series: Prince of Greenwood [8]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: what is love?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-14 05:13:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11776230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raiyana/pseuds/raiyana
Summary: TA 1500 onwards.Life of Legolas & Rhonith





	1. Love

**Author's Note:**

> This will be given a rewrite/major edit

Legolas remembered being taught about love. The minstrels of Ada’s Halls would sing the ancient lays, Beren & Luthien, Ëarendil the Mariner, and impart the lessons of the past. As an elfling, the concept had been abstract, impossible to quantify. Legolas knew that he had little experience with it, only able to watch the loving his people and friends showed in public. Ada loved him, that was a certainty, and Legolas knew that he loved Thranduil, even when he was his most haughty, kingly self. Many of the Sindar and Silvans of the Realm loved him, though few of them actually knew him. He felt warm and loving feelings for his friends, which were different to the loving feelings he felt for Ada. The love he carried for the flighty Rhonith was different to the first three types, however, and the difference agonized him for years.   
Legolas knew how sheltered he really was. Defending the peaceful borders of Greenwood the Great was no easy task, but nor was it difficult or highly dangerous. The rare Orc attack or repelling a warg or wolf invasion in hungry winters did not truly take much skill. He had learned the bow, and the weapon suited him, though he also fought with swords like Ada taught him. His skill with weaponry could not give him true experience, however, and Legolas had never really left the forest. He had travelled a few times to visit his kin in Imladris and Lothlórien, most notably the birth of Lord Elrond’s youngest daughter and he had been there to greet the arrival of his niece’s child four centuries before. He had seen Tavorwen’s love for her hervenn, Sídhon, but he did not recognise it in himself. For years, he assumed that he was simply unable to love as a hervenn should love his herbess, but that idea sat uneasily too. At times, he wondered if it would not be a blessing if he never found someone to love; his Ada’s fate, combined with Arassiel’s separation had made him wary of the emotion. To his family, love brought only pain, he thought. Even Rhonith, only family through choice, had been devastated by the power of love, still grieving the loss of her gwathel, he knew, even if she rarely spoke of the former Queen to him. When he was young, she had tried telling him stories from her own childhood, stories of when she had lived with Thranduil and Nínimeth in Greenwood, played with their sons. Legolas had never liked those stories, far preferring her tales of far-off lands and people. He did not love his mother, he knew that. He also knew that he would never say that to either of them, for their love shone clearly in the stories they told of her. Ada had days where he would simply turn his face westwards and stare into nothing for hours. Rhonith would always cry when her visits coincided with the first snowdrops piercing the snow. Their love pained them in her absence, and Legolas did not want to feel it too. He missed his mother, but it was more the idea of having a mother, perhaps one like Alphel’s, who kissed her goodnight and sang and played with her. In many ways, he and Alphel were the same. Both missing a parent, though Alphel had known her father at least for a little while. Ephelchon had perished in an Orc raid when she was only fifty years old. Both elflings favoured the bow, and often practised together, challenging each other’s skills and daring. Many reckless moves had been learned in Alphel’s company and she was one of the few true friends he had.   
Legolas knew that many had expected him to announce their wedding on his one thousandth birthday, but Legolas did not care for her that way, and Alphel later found her true love in a guardsman from the northern borders. Legolas had been among the first to see that, and he thought the Court gossips’ supposition that he was heart-broken at her betrothal quite ridiculous. Thranduil had never asked him about it, but he had publicly endorsed the match, even allowing Alphel’s love to move to the Halls. Legolas had never felt jealous of his friend, except for the part where he would have liked to know what it felt like to love as he could see it in Alphel’s eyes, as though Amathon was the light of her life, the wind through her leaves. It would have been sickening if not for Amathon’s clearly returned love, which made them sickeningly sweet, in Legolas’ mind.   
Alphel and Amathon married on her 2300th birthday, and the feast was glorious. Everyone danced, even Rhonith - who usually declined offers and preferred to dance alone in the Noldorin style - accepted a few turns on the floor. She even danced with Thranduil, who never danced at all, but Legolas was almost too shy to ask, so the evening had grown late by the time he found her stepping into his hold. When his arm closed about her waist, his hand clasped hers, he realised that he did not want to have to let go when the song ended. Her skin was so soft against his, her curves generous under her fine clothes. Her hair shone in the starlight, its lustre only eclipsed by the stars shining in her blue eyes as she laughed her way through the twirls. He wanted to keep her there forever and the feeling scared him. Rhonith was his friend, he should not want to lock her away from the world, keep her all to himself. She never stayed, and Legolas feared that if he let himself, he would beg her to do so.   
Later, he did not know how he had managed to extricate himself from her arms, how he had stumbled back to his rooms like a staggering drunk, reeling from the first lick of what would become his secret despair. For the first time in his life, he knew what it was to want covetously, while knowing that you cannot have what you desire and the taste of it was bitter on his tongue. For the rest of her stay – which ended mercifully swiftly when he realised how painful being around her would be – he tried to banish the thoughts swirling in his mind. He wanted to listen to her stories like always, yes, but he also wanted to taste them straight off her lips. He wanted to reach out to touch her soft hair, feel her curves under his hands without the cloth in the way. When she – finally! – left, for once he was happy to see her go. Perhaps these thoughts would disappear with her absence, her lack of temptation?   
They did not disappear, simply evolved slowly into more elaborate dreams and fantasies and he alternatively wanted to ravish her fully and keep her safe from everyone…including himself. She remained away for many long years, and though it was painful with his longing, her long absence reawakened his old dread; someday a messenger would come, tell him she had perished in some manner. The method of her death changed with each of his grim dreams, leaving him gasping himself awake in fear. He told no one of his epiphany. Alphel, who would have been the closest one aside from Rhonith herself – who was automatically taken off the list of possible confidantes – was busy with her new hervenn, going out on patrols with his group half the time, even if she spent her other allotted guard duties with their old group.   
For three centuries, Legolas kept his longing a secret. When he finally told someone that he had fallen in love with the Noldorin elleth, it was Alphel’s cold body, returned from the chill stone fortress of Dol Guldur after a failed attempt at eradicating the spiders that had multiplied rapidly since the ‘Time of Lothig’ as Legolas called it. The foul creatures kept coming, relentless in their hostile invasion of the once peaceful Greenwood. Slowly the trees darkened, the soil worsened and massive webs began appearing. When the dragon drove off the Dwarrow of Erebor, taking Rhonith away for more years than he could ever remember her being gone, Legolas resigned himself once more to his loveless fate. He had long-since accepted the unchanging nature of his heart, but he vowed that Rhonith would never know, for she should not be trapped in one place by his heart. Rhonith was pure freedom, in Legolas’ mind, a freedom and a spirit that had to be protected.

 

As Legolas grew, she loved him easily, becoming a friend, but not trying to fill the role of his mother. She had sworn that he would not forget that he had a mother, but Legolas rarely wanted to hear stories of Nínimeth, and his anger and sense of betrayal tore at both her own heart and Thranduil’s. They had been the ones to decide that Nínimeth should sail, and thus cost the elfling his true Naneth. It was a guilt that would never be forgiven, for they would never ask his forgiveness, and Legolas did not realise that it might be needed. She watched him with his contemporaries, and he had so much of Nínimeth’s spirit that he simultaneously broke her heart into pieces and made it feel so full it might burst. Nínimeth would never share these memories, and Rhonith felt her heart break every time one of them turned to look at the joy on her face only to realise that the red-haired elleth was not beside them. Legolas grew quickly, always happy to see her, and Rhonith soaked up the feeling of happiness and love that surrounded him.  
When Legolas became an adult, in both manner and body, Rhonith did not want to see it. She did not want to see him discover and fall in love with someone else, and the time between her visits grew longer. She did not stay away entirely, but her trips to Greenwood began falling years apart rather than months. Instead, she filled her time with crafts, either practising her skill in the jewellery workshops or learning herb-craft and healing from the greatest masters of either people. At first she believed the reasons for her absence to be hidden, but Thranduil’s barely veiled looks of knowing made her believe her Atheg had guessed. He never spoke of it, and she had sworn to herself never to acknowledge the Longing to any elf. Legolas might be her One, but Elves did not have the same concept built into their race, and she thought it was better to let him discover love – even if it was with someone else – than tying him to herself in a bond he had not chosen. 

Time passed.


	2. Chapter 2

When Khazad-dûm fell and both Durin and his son Náin were slain, Rhonith had helped the Dwarven diaspora settle in the North, finding a new home for the dwarf she considered her son. 

First, they had made a small settlement in Erebor, but the main population of the Longbeards had gone to the Grey Mountains, and eventually Thorin I had colonized the large range as the new home of Durin’s folk. 

At the time of Erebor’s initial settling, the single mountain had been considered too small and worthless for much use, for it was not until Thrór returned, having lost his father and one younger brother to a great Cold-drake, that the Mountain’s true riches, deep below ground and spreading far from the base of the peak, were discovered. 

During the time of resettlement, she had been away from the Elven Realms, and before she knew it, five decades had passed easily. Before long, a full century had turned, in which she had only returned to Lothlórien once and Greenwood thrice. Dwarven politics played in, and Rhonith knew it was time to leave her power as Thorin’s former Regent behind, letting the new queen come into her own as Thorin’s partner in all ways.

Rhonith left Thafar’abbad, returning to Greenwood in time for Legolas’ 2100th birthday. That night had been merry, filled with music and dancing. After her long absence, the presence of her One made her almost giddy, and she did not manage to talk herself out of asking him to dance with her. Being in his arms was blissful, but she knew that he did not consider it anything special, and neither mentioned it the next morning. It would be another 200 years before she would find herself dancing with him again. 

In the meantime, she visited only once every two decades, studying healing in Rivendell for most of the time in between visits, travelling in the Orocarni Mountains and learning more intricate secrets of jewel-crafting or journeying across Gondor and Harad, seeking out new sights of the world. She tried to deny the Longing as long as she could, knowing that it was impossible, but staying away until the sensation grew too uncomfortable. At times, she cursed the Maker, forcing her to live like this, but she also considered it a blessing. Had she never held Legolas, known in an instant who he was, the kind and fierce soul he possessed, she thought she would have accompanied Nínimeth across the Sea. Leaving Thranduil behind to weather the grief of losing four of his small family so close together would have torn her heart to pieces, but leaving Nínimeth, who barely understood where she was going and why, to wake alone on the shores of Aman, with nothing more than a letter she would have to ask someone else to read to her… that thought was even more painful. Avornien offering to accompany the Queen had been a blessing, but even after two millennia, Rhonith felt unsure whether listening to Nínimeth and promising to remain in Middle-Earth had been for her sake or Rhonith’s own. Her guilty conscience told her that staying had been utterly selfish, even if Nínimeth had all but demanded it. The elleth she had called sister had not been in her right mind, there was no telling whether she even understood what she was asking. Those thoughts ate at her. 

On the other hand, the Longing would probably have driven her mad, even in the peace of the Undying Lands. The loneliness would have diminished her, until she would have gone to the Maker and begged a place in Itdendûm, just to make it stop. It was said those who dwelled in the Halls of Waiting only felt the Longing for their One when that soul joined them in death. Legolas would live forever unless killed in battle, and the thought of escape was heady. Rhonith knew that, if he found someone to fall in love with, explosively and instant like Elves usually did, she would never satisfy the Longing. If that happened, she would go, sail West and implore the Maker to grant her a space beside her mother. 

When he was younger, it was simply a need to protect, nurture and comfort, but now that he was grown, she desired so much more. She wanted more than smiles and conversations, rare dances which allowed her to touch. More than infrequent visits whenever her need was greatest, assuaging the Longing that her One was alive and well, before leaving once more so she would not give in and break her oath. Elves were not Dwarrow, they did not have a One, and she owed it to Legolas to let him fall in love. Every time she visited Thranduil’s Halls, those words repeated in her head, and she watched the young prince discover life around him in new and exciting ways with both pride and sorrow. Every day brought him closer to the one who would steal his heart, she felt. 

Rhonith never believed Legolas would fall in love with her, even if Thranduil’s love protected her from most of the long glances she received in Imladris. In Lothlórien, most of those who dwelled there had known her father – personally or by reputation – and some had met her mother, followed the pregnancy that led to the birth of the little elleth Almarië, and they knew she was born of love. The rest of the Eldar did not have that advantage. Many – even if they liked her as a person – would look at her as odd. She was as much an Elf as any of them, but her shorter stature and the braids she insisted on plaiting into her hair, made her a peculiar sight. Knowing that she was the child of a Dwarf and an Elf and had rights to both cultures did not improve their acceptance of her quirks. Even when she was still called Almarië, Rhonith had known those who whispered that she was Morgul – a product of Dark Sorcery. Four millennia after her birth, when any reasonable person had to admit that she was more Elf than Dwarf, at least physically, some still thought her an abomination. The First-born Children of Eru might deign to love and breed with Men, after all they too were Eru’s creations, even if they were lesser than the Eldar, but siring a child on one of the Naugrim? No, the Eldar considered such a thing impossible until it happened, and an abomination when the child lived. There had been Dwarf-Elf couples before, Círdan had once told her, when the world was very young, but never a child who lived to be born. The old Shipwright had called her a miracle, and every time since his first visit, when she was only fifty, she had repeated the words in her head as a shield against the glances and mutterings of the unkind. She was a Child of both Eru and Mahal, and she was proud of being both, even if it left her without a true home among either race.

* * *

Alphel’s wedding was lovely. Rhonith had always liked the spirited girl, and her friendship with Legolas had brought the two elleths together in a friendship of their own. Rhonith had seen Alphel’s love grow from the first small spark to the raging fire it now held; a chance meeting with Amathon during one of Legolas’ journeys to the Northern borders had sealed Alphel’s heart in an instant. The bride and groom were incandescently happy, and their joy spread throughout the grand feast. Alphel’s parents, Ephelchon and Míriel, had been well-liked, Ephelchon being a Captain of the Guard and Míriel served on Thranduil’s Council of Elders as she had served Oropher before him. Ephelchon had died many centuries ago and Míriel had followed some years before Alphel met Amathon. In their honour, Thranduil had thrown a lavish wedding feast for Alphel, who had always been Legolas’ closest friend. Heady Dorwinion wine flowed freely, musicians played tirelessly and the dancers whirled and moved endlessly. Rhonith had had a little too much wine, laughter and joy, and found herself once again in the one place she should not go: Legolas’ arms. At first, she had wanted to decline, but her heart would not let the ‘no’ pass her lips. Being held there was just as wonderful as the last time, and Rhonith danced with him joyfully. When the dance was over, she wanted to kiss him, but managed to stop herself following the impulse. The look in his eyes, when she truly managed to see it through her own drunk and blissful eyes made her let go of him instantly. The dark blue eyes that stared down at her were not shining with happiness or love; instead they were shadowed by fear. Legolas fled as soon as she let go, and Rhonith felt her heart shatter. 

When she left eight days later – having barely spoken to her One, who seemed to make a habit of avoiding her company whenever he could – she was depressed enough that she had made it halfway to the Grey Havens before she realised. When she did, she cursed the air blue in Khuzdul for an hour, before turning her mount and heading to Imladris. She would not run like a coward! She was her mother’s daughter and she would not let heartbreak take her from the lands she loved, let love make her an oath-breaker and turn her back on her Maker’s Children! Anger carried her to the peace of the Last Homely House, where she remained for a decade, letting her temper cool and continuing her studies. 

 

Time passed.


	3. Chapter 3

When one of her clockwork frequency visits was interrupted by a spider attack and a small pebble, Rhonith felt hopeful for the first time. The lust and desire that hung in the air around them made her heart beat faster, and the way he looked at her at times, when he watched her play with Lothig… but nothing came of it, once again he turned away and avoided her company. This time, her anger changed focus. Instead of blaming herself for giving herself away and revealing her heart to its unappreciative intended, this was Legolas actively desiring her yet rejecting her anyway. She did not understand why and could only see it as a reflection of her ‘impure’ nature. She wept. 

During the days, she kept Hanar and Vrís between them, or remained close to Thranduil. At night, she either slept alone, or walked the forest restlessly. A few nights she stayed up with Thranduil, talking about everything and nothing at all and soaking up his silent support. Atheg had never scorned her for her mother’s blood, and it hurt her deeply to think that Legolas had managed to hide his disdain so well for so long. Rhonith could not reconcile the thought with the elf she had watched grow up, and Legolas remained friendly with her, even in private. It was as if the weeks of physical desire had never happened at all. She was confused. Eventually, she concluded that he only ever wanted her friendship and that perhaps the desire she had felt was merely an expression of his wish for children combined with her warm body pressed against him. The thought was painful, but she could accept it, and remain his friend, give up any dream of more. Watching him have a family with someone else would still destroy her heart, she knew, but until it happened, she would fulfil her promise to Nínimeth and be his friend. 

While Frís, Vrís, and Hanar still visited the Greenwood, Rhonith’s visits were more frequent than in centuries past, but after Smaug put an abrupt stop to those joyous times of peace, she did not return to Greenwood for many years. At first, she followed the diaspora south, before breaking off for Lothlórien to beg mercy from Galadriel for her mother’s kin. Then, she travelled to Lord Elrond, who also promised aid which Thrór rebuffed. Grief-stricken, Rhonith had remained in Imladris for more than twenty years, ignoring life around her. When Rhonith’s usual span of years between visits had passed, she did not turn her feet towards Greenwood, instead making her way to Caras Galadhon and reopening her talan. When the chatter of the forest spoke of two lone Dwarrow making their way to the Dimril Dale, she roused herself enough to find Thrór and Nár, but their meeting only caused a resurgence of her anger and grief. She returned to her Mallorn shrouded home once more, listlessly walking among the trees. 

The first of her gifts, sent to Frís through a passing trader she had met a few times in Erebor and marked simply with a single leaf hidden on the bottom of a spice jar, was shipped off shortly after. With it began a steady stream of presents from her journeys through the lands of Lothlórien. She did not dare visit, but she included letters, coded and sealed with silver wax. 

The war of Dwarrow and Orcs mostly passed Rhonith’s attention by, but she had gone to be of what aid she could in the healer’s tents after Azanulbizar. The dwarrow had fought so closely to the Elvenhome of their long-since comrades and friends, the last of the Noldorin exiles in Middle-Earth. The terrible battle, blood-bright chaos and death all around her had shocked her out of her depressed state. Once more, she felt alive, needed. 

Ilsamirë had seen the young Prince Thorin, as he refused to let go of the body of his younger brother, but she had not dared approach, keeping herself hidden from the eyes of King Thraín, who had followed in his father’s elf-hating footsteps and who would likely recognise her, even so many years after their last meeting. Galadriel had not trusted the protection of her Dwarrow blood would be enough to safeguard Ilsamirë from Thraín’s wrath, sending her Marshwardens along for the elleth’s protection, but when they had approached the Dwarven general to offer aid as healers, the rebuff had been sharp and vicious. No Elves were welcome among the Dwarrow, on pain of death, not even if they came only to heal. Ilsamirë had been the only one to stay, and she had simply snuck into one of the tents and begun working. Her kinsmen had stared no more than a minute at her Elvish garb before accepting her aid. Even if she had not been a skilled healer, she was an extra pair of hands on a day when every hand was needed, and the healers could not fault her silent work. She did not speak, save for mutters of Khuzdul prayers for the dead and dying, did not give them her name, and one corner of whatever tent she graced with her presence was filled by another Elf, dark eyes and hair, and a penetrating stare, who watched over her every move. Nurtalëon, Ilsamirë’s best friend in Lothlórien, had defied the Dwarf-King’s edict with the contempt it deserved. He had been tasked with the peredhel’s protection many years before, and Nurtalëon would do his duty, even if it had not been what his heart told him to do. The elleth didn’t say, but Ilsamirë knew that she didn’t need to: Nurtalëon was well aware of how much she appreciated both his tacit approval and his protection.


End file.
